


Dressed to the Nines

by audreycritter



Series: Batfam Week 2017 [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batdad, Batfam Week 2017, Fluff, Gen, Getting Ready, SO MUCH FLUFF, bruce and alfred reference british literature, bruce whines about social events, dick grayson is young, gala - Freeform, socks and ties, they are all dorks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-13 17:03:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11189502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: When it comes to being social, Bruce can be pretty whiny.And how in the world did he end up with Dick Grayson, Extrovert Extraordinaire, as a ward?Or, the story of how Alfred handles nonsense with sarcasm and Bruce feels like a Dad.





	Dressed to the Nines

“I don’t want to go.”

Bruce Wayne was sprawled face down across his bed, his cuffs and bow tie loose. His words were muffled by the deep blankets.

“There are many mornings I do not care to prepare breakfast,” Alfred Pennyworth said dryly and without sympathy, lint-rolling the tux jacket even though it was spotless. “It is fortunate that I, too, am dictated by my wants.”

“It’s my house,” Bruce complained, his voice still distorted by layers of cotton and silk. “I’ll just send them all home.”

“I’ll cancel immediately,” Alfred said. “I’ll apologize and blame a sudden illness. You can, perhaps, go out earlier than planned.”

“Would you?” Bruce rolled over on the bed suddenly and propped himself up on an elbow. “I can write a check for—” He caught sight of Alfred’s expression and frowned. “Damn.”

“Do not put a crease in those trousers,” Alfred said sternly, raising an eyebrow. Bruce fell back on the bed with an annoyed huff. “I must confess, I had rather hoped you’d grown out of such childish displays after the last season.”

“I don’t feel well,” Bruce said. “For real. I think I have a fever.”

“I trust your ability to put on a brave face and soldier on, as I know you’re preparing yourself to do. Your resolve is inspiring.” Alfred patted Bruce’s foot while walking by the bed with the suit jacket draped over one arm. “Up, then. Let me straighten that tie.”

“I hate parties,” Bruce said, putting a hand over his eyes and remaining flat on the bed. “Can this be the last one? I can fade into obscurity as an eccentric, reclusive billionaire. People like that now, right?”

“You _are_ an eccentric billionaire,” Alfred said. “One with a penchant for dressing up and bleeding.”

“I don’t like when you say it like that,” Bruce protested without moving his hand. “It makes me sound ridiculous.”

“If only _that_ were my chief concern,” Alfred said without apology, and with some humor. “Come along, Master Wooster. Go be recklessly social. I’m in want of some crisis to solve.”

“Ugh,” Bruce said. “Why do you always get to be Jeeves.”

“I have the build for it, sir,” Alfred answered without hesitation. “Though I admit I struggle with the disposition. It is not in my nature to be subservient.”

Bruce snorted and dragged his hand down his face. “I am actually tired,” he said.

“Perhaps you ought to take the night off.”

“A brief appearance?”

“I meant after the party, Master Bruce.”

Bruce grumbled.

The door flew open with a bang and thirteen-year-old Dick Grayson tore into the room at a breakneck speed and launched himself onto the bed. Neither Alfred nor Bruce flinched at the noisy arrival.

But then Dick landed, with a strategically placed elbow smashing into Bruce’s stomach.

“Oof,” Bruce gasped, retaliating by wrapping an arm around Dick’s head to roughly tousle the boy’s combed hair.

Dick struggled and then leapt back with an affronted scowl, sitting cross-legged on the bed while he tried to fix his hair with his fingers. “B, I spent _ten minutes_ on this.” A stubborn lock sprang out of place on one side.

“Then don’t go around wantonly attacking people,” Bruce laughed, sitting up and licking his thumb. He tucked the hair down again while Dick stuck his tongue out at him and squirmed.

“That’s rich coming from _you_ ,” Dick said, his cheeky grin returning quickly.

“Your hair tastes like my hair gel.” Bruce frowned after licking his thumb again and trying once more to tame the rebellious patch of hair. “Stop wiggling. Why are you dressed already?”

“Why do you know what your hair gel tastes like, weirdo?” Dick leaned as far back from Bruce’s outstretched hand as he could without actually moving from his spot on the bed. “Al! Help!” he yelped. “He’s getting germs all over me!”

“Didn’t seem to bother you much when you stole my sandwich earlier,” Bruce said, surrendering the task to Alfred’s ready comb. He wondered idly just how much Alfred managed to carry in his pockets without them looking bulky.

“How’d you like it if I licked _your_ head like a cat?” Dick demanded, giving him a sidelong scowl before turning a brilliant and warm smile toward Alfred. He produced a strip of bright fabric from his own pocket and held it out. “Can you help with my tie? I keep getting it in knots.”

Alfred pocketed the comb and pinched the tie between his fingers with a distasteful purse of his lips. “Master Richard. This is not the tie I set out.”

“Nope,” Dick agreed cheerfully. “It’s mine. I ordered it with allowance.”

The fabric was a respectable pale blue, but covered with peach-colored fat bodies with neon green and pink hair. Alfred continued to regard it as he might a dead rodent.

“Are these gremlins?” he ventured to ask, sighing and looping it around Dick’s neck. Bruce propped himself against the headboard and crossed his ankles, working on his own tie while watching Dick patiently tip his chin up in the air to give Alfred a better view of the knot. Alfred stooped a little, even with the height of the bed, to see his own handiwork.

“Nope. Trolls,” Dick answered. “They’re in right now, you know.”

“I do not know,” Alfred admitted, a rare show of ignorance. Bruce doubted Dick really knew this either. It was more likely the boy saw a picture of it someplace and deducted it based on his own whims regarding fashion. “I will warn you, you’re fast approaching the age where I’m afraid I must insist on formal. It is, after all, called _black tie_ for a reason.”

“I’ve got matching socks,” Dick said, pulling up his trouser leg to show them off when Alfred finished with the tie. “I’ll brace myself to settle for those by themselves. I got some Superman ones, too. And a pair with hamburgers.”

Bruce swung his legs over the side of the bed and eyed his ward with a bit of bewildered amusement. He gave up on his tie, which was a helpless and sideways mess, and tipped his chin in mirror of Dick’s earlier movement as Alfred sidestepped to fix it.

“Have you really been spending your allowance on socks?” Bruce asked, trying to remember what he’d spent money on when he was thirteen. He had vague memories of a laptop and books for a Japanese language program.

“Yep,” Dick said, jumping off the bed and straightening his jacket. “And other stuff. Why are you so slow? Finish getting dressed already.”

Alfred did not even make the slightest effort to disguise his triumphant smirk, while he stood immediately in front of Bruce with his gaze on the knotted tie.

“I thought I was going to have to chase _you_ into getting ready,” Bruce said. He adjusted the tie Alfred had just finished tying. “Too tight,” he said.

“It is not in the least,” Alfred answered, moving away. Bruce tugged at it and then left it alone.

“Are you _kidding_?” Dick shouted, spinning and crouching into position for a flip. Alfred’s hand on the crown of his head stopped him and he settled for a backbend, keeping his place even with his slick shoes on the carpeted floor. He looked at Bruce while upside down. “I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks! There’s food, and tons of people to talk to, and live music!”

Bruce squatted in front of him, peering seriously at Dick’s shining blue eyes. “You are a strange kid, chum.”

Dick kicked effortlessly into a handstand. “You’re the weirdo, Sharkbait,” he retorted. “You invite a bunch of people over and then try not to talk to any of ‘em. Do you have a date tonight?”

“I’ll have to find one,” Bruce said, tickling Dick under his arm. Dick gasped and pivoted to balance on one hand for a second. He kicked Bruce in the shoulder on his way back to upright.

“That wasn’t fair. What if I’d slipped and broken my neck?”

“Then I could skip the party,” Bruce said evenly, ignoring Dick’s aghast and mock-offended gape. “Are you going to _ruin_ evening with said date, when I find her?”

“I’ll be busy,” Dick said archly. Bruce was still squatting and Dick hopped up to balance his feet on his guardian’s knees. Bruce swayed with the sudden weight and just barely kept his balance.

“Busy eating?” Bruce asked, looking up. Dick held his arms out like he was on a tightrope.

“Among other things,” Dick said haughtily.

“So, your own date. Plenty of pretty girls tonight,” Bruce teased.

Dick’s face flushed dark red in an instant, and for only an instant before he regained his composure. He was a trained performer, after all, and the only tell left was the red tint to his ears.

“No,” he spat, as if disgusted. “You’re so _gross_. Al. Tell him to stop being crude.”

“Your jacket,” Alfred said, holding it out. Bruce gripped Dick’s ankles to lift him and stood slowly. The kid tensed his muscles and kept his perfect posture the whole way up. “And please, despite the convenient excuse an emergency room visit would provide, let’s not actually break any necks this evening.”

“You hear that, Dick?” Bruce asked, letting go suddenly. Dick fell like a pencil drop off a diving board and Bruce caught him under the arms, letting his feet dangle a few inches from the floor. “If it’s higher than your head, you don’t climb it tonight.”

“Unlike some people,” Dick answered, unbothered by his hanging limbs and seemingly content to be eye level with Bruce, “I can follow social rules pretty well.”

“Go easy on Al, chum. He doesn’t get out much,” Bruce chided with a wink. Dick rolled his eyes and slid out of Bruce’s grip to the floor.

“I’m sorry he’s such a bore,” Dick said seriously to Alfred, with an exaggerated sigh. “I’ve been working on it, but he’s a slow learner.”

“A fact I am intimately familiar with,” Alfred sympathized. Bruce took his jacket and shrugged into it. “I have been working for close to two decades with little success.”

“Hey,” Bruce exclaimed. “I feed and clothe and shelter this household.”

“Not for me,” Dick said. “I buy my own socks. And I’ll live in a tent in the backyard if I need to.”

“Where do you think that allowance _comes_ from?” Bruce asked, less exasperated than he was acting but thoroughly enjoying it.

“I don’t know,” Dick blinked innocently at him. “What _does_ Lucius do all day? He’s always too busy for me to ask.”

Bruce’s jaw dropped and beside him, Alfred discreetly coughed in the way he always did when trying to disguise obvious laughter. Deliberately, Bruce shut his mouth and lightly boxed one of Dick’s ears.

“Hey, watch the hair!” Dick warned, stepping back once and then twice for good measure. “Al _just_ fixed it after you messed it up the last time. And if you try to put your spit on me again, I’m calling Selina and making _her_ adopt you. You can be Isis’ freakish brother or something.”

Helplessly, Bruce turned to Alfred, who was carefully schooling his face into a sober detachment. He tried to say, ‘What do I do with this kid?’ with his eyebrows but Alfred pretended not to understand him.

“The party, young sirs. It will not wait forever.”

“I think I’m going to just go to bed,” Bruce said, reaching to loosen his tie. Dick lunged forward and swatted his hand away, and then took it to drag him out of the bedroom. Alfred followed them, but a few steps back. Bruce knew he’d break away to go oversee the catering staff soon.

“Come _on_ , there are like a hundred kinds of food down there. And I’ll even promise to leave you and your date alone if you get along with somebody.”

“Promise?” Bruce asked.

“Well, mostly,” Dick hedged. “If I like her. If she seems nice. If she doesn’t act too dumb. There are a lot of factors involved in screening for you, you know. And you always go for the ones that _act_ so stupid even when they aren’t.”

“It’s a cover story, Dick, that’s all,” Bruce said, with a reassuring pat to the boy’s shoulder. “I try to be nice, catch some attention to make the social columnists happy, that’s it.”

“Oh, I know,” Dick nodded. “If I thought you were _really_ in the market for a girlfriend, I’d be way harder on both of you. My current list of candidates is super short.”

“How many names?” Bruce asked, curious.

“None,” Dick said glibly. “So it’s good that you’re, you know, off the market. Married to the night. Me, on the other hand…”

“You stay where I can see you,” Bruce warned, struck with a sudden and probably partly irrational fear of every girl under sixteen that had come along with a parent for the chance to dress up. “And in good lighting.”

Was thirteen too young? He remembered Alfred’s rapidly fading unease when his own disappearance at a gala had turned out to be Bruce hiding under a table with _David Copperfield_ and a plate of shrimp. It had never occurred to him that the panic on the butler’s face might have been related to hormones and not, well, death or kidnapping concerns.

“Dick and his date, sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-”

“I think _most_ children sing that _at_ other people,” Bruce cut him off.

“Oh ho, it’s ‘children’ now. I’m a child again,” Dick laughed. “And I know, I just like watching you get all pale and nervous. Relax, B. Like I told you, I’m here for the food and the conversation. And if you need to be rescued from talking to somebody, just give me the signal. I’ll come over and help.”

“You,” Bruce told him, squeezing his shoulder when they paused in front of the double doors that led from the private hallway into the Manor ballroom. The sounds of swelling quartet music drifted through the wood. “You, chum, are a good partner.”

“We’re a pretty good team,” Dick nodded in acceptance. “Smile, Bruce. It’s not the dentist.”

“It’s worse,” Bruce said, hand on the doorknob.

“This is why you don’t have friends,” Dick sighed dramatically and straightened his bowtie a final time. “I guess I’ll just stick around for a while. Can I stay up late?”

“For rescue efforts?” Bruce smiled fondly at the kid. “Two whole hours.”

“Three, and I’ll let you pick our next movie for movie night, no arguments.”

“Done, kiddo.” Bruce offered a hand and Dick solemnly shook it.

Together, they went in.


End file.
